Google Might Stop Violating 'Search Neutrality' If Anybody Knew What That Actually Meant

from the now-you're-just-making-things-up dept

Given Google's position on network neutrality, white space spectrum, competition and other topics, it's not too surprising that they've drawn the ire of the larger telecom operators like AT&T, Verizon and Comcast. All three companies have massive lobbying operations, and have been busily engaged in pressuring Uncle Sam to investigate Google on every front -- be it Google's acquisition of AdMob, or AT&T's claim that Google Voice is being used to unfairly block nuns. While companies like AT&T complain ceaselessly about how any and all government regulation is unnecessary, they're unsurprisingly trying to get more regulation applied to Google. Since at least 2007, carriers and their various policy tendrils have been trying to argue that Google should be regulated for violations of "search neutrality," though it's amusing to notice that it's now 2010, and nobody seems to know what the term even means:

"AT&T went so far as to tell the FCC that nothing it could possible do would be as worrisome as what Google was up to. "And more than any physical network provider, search engines pose concerns that the [rulemaking] identifies as a potential basis for government intervention: They 'determine the information ... that customers access online' through algorithms that highlight some information, favor certain websites, and even omit some sites altogether. As a result, they can 'deter market entry in areas that would benefit consumers and damage[e] potential entrants.' Just as search engines dominate the selection of winners and losers on the Internet, one search engine in particular -- Google's -- dominates the search engine market."

"Search neutrality" is an absurd notion, given that search algorithms by their very nature aren't neutral, and the entire purpose of search is to discriminate and point the user toward more pertinent results. Meanwhile, Google became a market leader by being good at what they do. Users have other options available if they feel that isn't the case, or if they find that Google is suddenly discriminating in terms of search results -- so Google can very quickly be punished should they begin to engage in ranking skulduggery. A company like AT&T, meanwhile, holds a physical monopoly in many markets -- leaving consumers with little to no option should AT&T choose to engage in anti-competitive behavior.

Search neutrality at its core is a term created by companies eager to bog Google down in bad regulation -- the same kind of bad regulation companies like AT&T believe Google is foisting upon them in the network neutrality debate. The difference, again, is that Google's customers can vote with their wallet, while most broadband customers have few if any alternatives (which is why we argue that tackling competition should take priority). Meanwhile, ISPs repeatedly insist that network neutrality rules aren't necessary because there's no evidence of ISP foul play -- yet here they are -- pushing for nebulous regulations without providing evidence of Google abuse (aside from a few people whining late last year that they weren't ranked high enough for their liking).

All of this simply highlights how the entire network neutrality debate has been so polluted by lobbyist, lawyer and think tank nonsense and hypocrisy (on all sides) -- that it has just completely degraded into incoherent rhetoric. Whatever you think of the need for neutrality regulation, it's important to remember the network neutrality debate truly took off in 2005, with AT&T telling Google they wanted to charge content companies already paying for bandwidth an extra toll -- just because. AT&T was loudly and clearly told by Internet users that this was idiotic idea -- though the conversation seems to have gone completely downhill from there in terms of actually making sense.

Filed Under: search, search neutrality
Companies: at&t, google

Should Doctors Google Patients?

from the information-wants-to-be-free dept

We recently had a story about an article in the Journal of Medical Ethics that recommended doctors avoid using social networks entirely, because of potential ethical issues related to patient information. That seems a bit extreme. It seems like there would be ways to use social networks without compromising your ethics. However, a recent article in the LA Times takes this discussion a step further. Beyond discussing social networking usage and "friending" between doctors and patients, it wonders if it's okay for doctors to do internet searches on their patients to find out more info about them (or even see if they're lying about stuff). Of course, this seems like a bit of a flip side to the typical complaint from some doctors who don't like that patients are searching for information online themselves, though usually more for self-diagnosis. The article suggests that it really depends on the doctor, the patient and the situation, but it seems that many doctors are afraid to search for info about their patients.

Filed Under: doctors, patients, search, social networking

Google Approach In China: Redirect To Hong Kong

from the let's-see-what-happens-now dept

Google obviously made a big splash earlier this year when it threatened to leave China in response to a hack attack. There's been a lot of back and forth, and some questions about whether or not Google would really leave. Just last week, China ratcheted up the rhetoric, warning Google not to stop censoring search results. Now Google has made its strategy a bit clearer, by saying that it's going to redirect all Google Chinese searches to the Hong Kong version of its search engine, which is not censored. And, now, it waits for China's response. Amusingly, Google has also set up a little dashboard that highlights what Google services China is currently blocking. The next big question, of course, is whether or not Google will also start looking for ways to help people get around the blocks...

Filed Under: censorship, china, hong kong, search
Companies: google

Newspapers Gaming Google With Questionable Tactics

from the who's-stealing-from-whom-now? dept

There was some hubbub earlier this month when sex columnist Violet Blue discovered that one of her old columns for the SF Chronicle had been altered by the Chronicle's online site, SFGate.com. She was upset that the changes implied the article said the opposite of what it actually said -- and found it odd that, beyond that, all the links and comments were missing, and the story was now spread out over several pages. This resulted in some investigations, with venture capitalist Tim Oren pointing out that this appeared to be the work of a company called Perfect Market, a well-funded startup (funded, in part, by the Tribune Company), who had partnered with various newspaper sites to game Google's search results. As Oren notes:

The keyword and ad-stuffed dead end pages apparently produced by Perfect Markets's technology are isomorphic, from a search company's point of view, to those created by more questionable tactics such as scraping. The intent is the same: to spam the index. This is the behavior that routinely gets questionable sites shoved to Google's back pages, or banished altogether. One has to wonder just how long this type of abuse will be tolerated, simply because it's being practiced by a recognized media outlet.

GigaOm also picked up on this story and in the comments to that article Ben Metcalfe did some sleuthing and revealed a bunch of newspapers all using this same highly questionable tactic.

Now, there are a few ironies here. First, with so many newspaper people (misleadingly) claiming that Google "steals" from them with Google News, to then find out that many of those same newspaper are trying to game Google with highly questionable tactics -- basically proves that the newspapers are lying. They clearly want more Google traffic, and they're willing to go to ridiculous lengths to get it.

Second, for all the talk of how no one can do investigative reporting without newspapers being around, it's fascinating to see this story broken open by some bloggers and commenters -- rather than any newspaper. That says something, doesn't it?

In the meantime, it appears that Perfect Market is going into damage control mode, contacting GigaOm, and trying to spin the whole thing, by insisting that it's really just trying to "delight our customers and users with innovative new content experiences." The company also claims that it's not "spamming" search engines but that it provides "contextual navigation to relevant related content and topics so the user can browse the publishers vast content library rather than creating dead ends." Except, in this case, the "innovative new content experience" actually did lead to a "dead end," rather than pointing to the original article, which included the proper details, links to other sources, and the comments and discussion that happened with the article.

While it's certainly not as nasty as typical search engine spammers, it's difficult to see this as anything other than an attempt to game Google by questionable means. Google has had no qualms about pulling high profile companies like BMW from its index in the past. It will be interesting to see if it will do the same with some of these newspapers who appear to be pushing the boundaries.

Filed Under: newspapers, search, seo
Companies: google, perfect market, sf chronicle, tribune company

No, You Don't Have To File Patent Lawsuits

from the bogus-reasons dept

A bunch of folks have been sending in the news of Xerox's patent lawsuit against Google and Yahoo over search technology, and I'd debated posting it at all. It's the same old story. A company widely considered a has-been goes searching through its patents, on technology it did nothing at all with, and sues other companies who had the same idea and actually went forward and implemented it successfully. Yet another case of "those who can't innovate, litigate."

But what caught my attention was Xerox's given reason for pursuing the lawsuit:

"We believe we have no option but to file suit to properly protect our intellectual property."

Sorry, but that's no reason to file a lawsuit. It's a common cliche in patent lawsuits, but it's totally bogus. Of course you have other options. There is no rule that you have to file a lawsuit to "protect" the patent. There is no "protecting" that needs to be done. This is just a blatant attempt to squeeze money out of companies who actually implemented a product where Xerox failed. That's not protecting, it's shaking down.

Filed Under: patents, protection, search
Companies: google, xerox, yahoo

You Know What Was Useless In DARPA's Balloon Challenge? Google Search

from the can't-find-everything-just-yet dept

We got a great response to our recent article looking through the lessons learned from the MIT team's quick victory in DARPA's "find the red balloons" challenge. JP Werlin pointed out one additional interesting point however: despite this being a task involving searching, finding and aggregating information, Google search was useless for this particular project:

Google didn't matter because Google is a file cabinet of the past. Yes, we know that supposedly this week Google Real Time Search is launching and it will be the next great thing. We also know there are Google Alerts that help us stay current. But there was no real time search or alert that helped us on Saturday, December 5, 2009. Now Google documents were great (we used Spreadsheets) and Google Maps with Street View was indispensable. But Google's main function, it reason for being, was 100% irrelevant. Google is great for looking at yesterday. In its current form, Google is a complete failure for looking at today. And when I mean today I do not mean today's Wall Street Journal or Techcrunch as arguably those are both looking at history as well. I am talking about what is happening right now, this moment. And do you want to know the best place to find out what is happening right now? Twitter Search.

Perhaps that changes (as noted) with Google's real time search offering, but it is notable. Google positions itself as wanting to be the place where you can find any relevant information, but that information is backwards looking.

Filed Under: balloons, darpa, search
Companies: google

Dear Rupert: You Don't Succeed By Making Life More Difficult For Users

from the this-will-not-work dept

Well, look at that. Last week it was just a silly suggestion from some netheads, and now come reports that Rupert Murdoch is at least in the early stages of considering opting out of Google, with Microsoft paying it to be "exclusive" on Bing. Apparently, Microsoft has actually approached a few publications about doing similar deals. It's no surprise that Microsoft and Murdoch would explore this. Microsoft has experimented for years with programs to bribe people to use its search engine over Google's -- but it hasn't done much to help. Meanwhile, Murdoch continues to not actually understand how the internet or copyright law works, and has some oddly misplaced dislike for Google (despite the fact that Google alone is pretty much what kept Murdoch-owned MySpace alive for years, and Murdoch owns a bunch of sites that aggregate info just like Google).

Still, if this does go forward, it will signal incredibly short-sighted thinking on the parts of everyone who participates. The initial reaction would be significantly less traffic to any site that agrees to participate, considering that Google still drives a ton of traffic to most major sites. Simply giving that up for a chunk of cash is a very risky proposition. Second, in factionalizing the web, it harms everyone. No one wants to have to think about which sites are included in which search engine, and if the battle begins in earnest, then you have a situation where you end up in an inevitable stalemate, with certain sites in Google's search engine, but not in Microsoft's, and others in just Microsoft's but not Google's -- and no one wins. Third, the cost of this program to a company like Microsoft to make it meaningful is huge. It's much bigger than the numbers that were being tossed out before. Finally, all this would really do is open up new opportunities for one of three things (or a combination) to happen (1) a new meta search engine shows up that aggregates both Microsoft and Google results (2) technology hacks that will allow you to combine the two results in one or (3) Google realizes that it has copyright law fair use on its site and keeps indexing sites anyways. I'm not sure Google would take that last step, but if things go nuclear, it might make the most sense.

But the key thing is that none of this does anything to help users. And that's the problem. It's not adding even the tiniest sliver of additional benefit to users. And these days, that's a strategic error. If your business is focused on making life more difficult for a competitor, rather than adding more value to users, you're doing the wrong thing. Microsoft and News Corp. should be trying to provide more value to users, and instead, they seem to be plotting ways to make consumers' lives more annoying and more difficult. They may think that's smart, but in the long term, such strategies always backfire.

Filed Under: bribes, search
Companies: microsoft, news corp.

Would Top Sites Really Opt-Out Of Google Based On A Microsoft Bribe?

from the doubtful dept

Every so often, internet pontificators try to come up with ways to "kill Google." It's a silly game, but in an oddly timed move, three people (who have all put forth "how to kill Google" ideas in the past) all suddenly published similar ideas, yet again. Jason Calacanis, Mark Cuban and Tom Foremski all posted similar ideas about how certain sites (such as the top sites in the top search results) could all choose to opt-out of Google and, say, join another search engine like Bing. It's one of those ideas that sounds good for about 5 seconds. And then you actually think about it. First, the numbers being tossed around concerning how much it would cost, say, Microsoft, to convince most of these sites to opt-out of their number one driver of traffic is significantly higher than what's being mentioned in these articles. Many of these sites rely on Google traffic to make a ton of money, and they're not going to throw that away easily. At least in Calacanis' plan he suggests Microsoft offer "50% more than they make in Google referrals" which certainly beats Cuban's idea that many sites would opt-out of Google for $1,000.

Here's the thing, though. Most of those sites worked hard to get to the top of Google for a very good reason: they understand the value of being easily findable. As such, they also recognize that it makes little sense to make themselves less findable at almost any price. Getting anyone to opt-out first (other than suicidal sites like Rupert Murdoch's News Corp.) is going to be nearly impossible. Who would want to risk that? Because the instant they opt-out, someone else would take their place. Quickly. And decisively.

There's value in being found these days, and to be found you need to be easily findable from anywhere if someone's looking for you. Not only would traffic decrease, but so would basic reputation. Even if Microsoft pays you a ton to drop out of Google, people are going to search for your business in Google and when they can't find it, they're not going to care how much Microsoft paid, they're going to think you're a small-time nobody. The best strategy these days, as most web site operators know, is to be as widely available as possible. Opt-ing out of Google because someone pays you some money is a lot more costly than just the lack of traffic.

Filed Under: bribes, news, opt-out, search
Companies: google, microsoft

Newspaper Industry Lawyers Attack Fair Use, Claim Google Is Illegal

from the and-so-it-begins dept

Hmm. So, on Monday Rupert Murdoch suggests that the courts would reject fair use as a concept, and by Friday two newspaper industry lawyers just happen to have an op-ed piece in the Wall Street Journal explaining how Google violates copyright law by caching the websites it indexes. If the names of the lawyers -- Bruce W. Sanford and Bruce D. Brown -- sound vaguely familiar, that's because they're the same two lawyers who, six months ago, wrote a laughably ridiculous editorial (that time for the Washington Post) proposing special new copyright laws to save newspapers, while destroying pretty much everything that makes the internet useful. Of course, both the Washington Post and the WSJ conveniently left out the fact that these two lawyers regularly represent newspapers and other media and entertainment firms -- even as that seems rather relevant (what happened to those FTC disclosure laws?).

While I do actually agree with the lawyers that it's a shame the focus on the Google Book Search settlement avoided the big fair use question, I think they're entirely wrong to suggest that Google itself violates copyright law.

The copyright code allows public libraries to copy texts as long as there is no "direct or indirect commercial advantage." But that does not describe what search engines do. They use the complete copies they take for free to sell the advertising that has made them enormously profitable. This has a direct impact on book publishers, and on the publishers of magazines and newspapers that are losing the advertising that once supported them. According to Ken Auletta's recently released book "Googled," its search business alone now takes in 40% of all advertising across the Internet.

Perhaps Sanford and Brown are unfamiliar with basic copyright law, but the commercial advantage issue is only a small part of copyright law, and there are plenty of well-established cases of fair use in commercial use. In fact, I'd suggest that they consult the very media companies they work for, as most of them regularly rely on fair use defenses for reprinting or broadcasting content -- despite the fact that they're very commercial entities.

Furthermore, it appears that Sanford and Brown are either unfamiliar with how Google works -- or are purposely misrepresenting it. In the case of most news stories, Google has little or no ads. It only recently put ads on Google News -- long after the decline in ad revenue for newspapers. Besides, if local advertisers are finding a better return by advertising on Google, isn't that a good thing? That's called competition, and I'm surprised these lawyers would be against that.

In the last year, many fresh ideas have begun to circulate on how to help the publishing industry transition profitably to the online world. But without legal reform to back up these new business models, publishers will not have the bargaining power to make the search engines into true partners willing to compensate them meaningfully for their copyrights.

Yes, proposals like the ones that you guys suggested in the Washington Post without disclosing who pays your bills? Funny how that works. And those proposals are not about "helping the publishing industry transition profitably." Plenty of smart publishers are perfectly profitable. The proposals are about protecting the status quo and hurting the innovators who better serve the market. Sanford and Baker are trying to protect their big clients, but they'd be better off telling them to innovate, rather than push bogus editorials and pass ridiculous laws designed to hold back progress.

Filed Under: bruce brown, bruce stanford, copyright, fair use, newspapers, search
Companies: google

Jurors Required To Sign Promises Not To Google Details Of Case

from the modern-technology,-meet-the-courts dept

There have been plenty of stories concerning judges warning jurors not to research any additional items about a case online, but JJ points us to what is apparently a first (at least in California). A judge has ordered the jury to sign a document that they will not use the internet to research the case, and they can face perjury charges if they're caught doing so. Apparently, the reasoning is that most jurors tend to ignore the spoken warning. My guess is that many will ignore the signed promise as well -- in fact, as some behavioral research has shown, just telling them not to do it, may make them even more likely to do so. At some point, the courts are going to have to realize that you simply can't prevent people from looking up more info, and will have to come up with ways to adapt.

Filed Under: internet, juries, promises, search